


the new dark age

by heartofstanding



Category: The Hobbit
Genre: (well sort of), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-28 05:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: In the dungeons of Dol Guldur, Fili and Tauriel meet again.





	the new dark age

It is dark.

Very dark.

So very, very dark.

It's cold as well. There must be vents or windows or _something_ far above him, for a freezing wind blows through this place. There is ice in the air and he huddles in the corner, folding in on himself as tight as can be, trying desperately to keep himself warm. It is no good. This room is so cold that he thinks that even the dark vanished, if the sun came out in all its burning glory, there would be no warmth in it.

The ground is wet beneath him, this cell is dank and when the wind quietens, sometimes he hears it. The steady drip-drip of water somewhere. He can find it, if he wants, stumbling over the uneven stones and falling over at least a dozen times until he can feel it dripping on him, so cold each drop feels like a pebble bouncing off him. He can open his mouth and drink, though the taste is bitter and foul. It tastes no worse than the water the orcs bring him.

He is a dwarf, one of Durin's line. He should know no fear of the dark and be hardy enough to withstand the cold and the wet. What is it to him, to be locked in a cell of stone? He is made to endure, and he will.

He must.

Yet he cannot deny the fear licking his bones, the terror. It is not that it is dark and cold and dank, that he is alone, that he does not know what happened to his brother, that he was captured and made into the prisoner of orcs and something far worse in this old fortress. Once, he heard the whispers, murmurs of a necromancer, an old dark lord for a new dark age, and now he is the necromancer's prisoner.

It is the waiting that makes him so afraid.

He expects torture and death, but they leave him alone. The orcs won't even touch him unless he tries to escape or tries to fight them. He didn't even know orcs took prisoners until he became one.

He doesn't know how long he's been kept down here – a week? a month? – and he doesn't know why he's being kept here. Time drops away from him in heavy slabs, and they insist on keeping him alive. They feed him and, in the beginning, tended to his wounds. He's left to sit in the dark and guess at why they want him and what is going on in the world above.

It makes him cold all over, sends the last of the warmth from his bones. _He doesn't know what is intended for him_ and his imagination drives him mad.

+

The door, high above, scrapes open and there is a distant flare of a weak and grey light, the sounds of a struggle. The laughter of orcs, and the voice of a woman, raised and protesting, cursing orcs. Boots sliding on the rough stones, but quiet, like their owner was only light. Then the snarling, cold voice of the commander.

'Come on, come on. What are you waiting for? Put the she-elf down there with the dwarf.'

He slowly gets to his feet, staring at the distant light, the distorted shape one lone elf-woman, struggling wildly in the grip of at least four orcs. There's a sound of flesh hitting flesh and the woman screams, tumbling down the stairs. From the orcs come howls of laughter and jeering, the sound echoing between the dark, high walls of the cell. The commander speaks again, ordering them away, and the door slams shut.

All he can hear is the elf-woman's gasping breaths, half-drowned by the rushing wind.

'Are you all right?' He calls, keeping his voice quiet. Balin says that elves have sharp ears, that they can hear a leaf fall, and he doesn't want to give the orcs a reason to return. The elf-woman groans and he hears the slight slither of movement, like she's rolling onto her back.

'Yes.' Her voice is short, clipped, and wreathed in pain, 'The ground broke my fall.'

He snorts, despite himself, and thinks he recognises the voice. He takes a few half-aborted steps towards her. Kíli's – well, he's not sure really _what_ she is to Kíli or even if she is Kíli's. But she is the one that saved him and that is enough for Fíli.

'Tauriel?'

'Fíli?'

He nods, even though she can't see it, and he feels something slightly warm, something that beats back a little of the deadly chill in the air. It has been too long since he heard his name spoken, since he has been called anything but _dwarf_.

'Yes,' he says.

'They've been looking for you!' Tauriel's voice is bright, almost loud in the stillness, 'It's been two months, but they will not give up, Kíli—'

'Kíli?' He says, reaching out to grasp the damp stone, 'He's alive? He's fine?'

'Well enough,' she says, 'He's going mad trying to find you.'

Fíli takes a deep breath. Kíli is not dead or trapped in another dark cell just like this one, or worse. Relief makes him weak, makes him slide slowly to his knees, uncaring of the puddle that soaks the knee of his trousers.

+

It is night, or so Fíli guesses. The darkness does not change, there are no variations in the light, or the lack of it, but it grows colder and colder. With one hand, he holds Tauriel's hand, while the other presses against the wall, hewn from the dead rock and colder than winter. He finds a corner and folds them into it. Tauriel presses close to him, closer than what either one of them would like, but the cold has a way of taking things like respectability and dignity and making them seem silly.

Her body is strange to him, tall and bony. She reminds him of a bird, bones set at sharp and hard angles, but beautiful all the same. Then he thinks she might be wrought from mithril, light and beautiful, but strong and deadly. Yet there are parts of her that are soft – the hair cascading down her shoulders, veiling their faces from the cold and the dark.

'Are you wounded?'

'No,' she says, softly, and he thinks she might be lying but does not press her for the truth.

She talks of the stars, of the bright light that the elves revered before the sun first rose and the moon was made. Her lips spill many stories of the different constellations, how they were made, what they stand for and what they mean. She talks of Eärendil and the Silmaril, of his fight against Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of all dragons. It is not him she is talking to, not really, but the words comfort her and distract him a little from their circumstances.

'So even this darkness must pass,' she says, raising her head to stare at the pitch-like air around them, 'It cannot endure forever.'

He hunches down in his clothes, trying to cling to a warmth that does not last, that does not even seem to exist anymore. Her breath is warm against his face. He is tired, and the dark is deep and cold, but he is not alone.

+

When they wake, he teaches her how to find the dripping water and they go together, taking it in turn to catch the drops in their mouths and wince at the taste. At the first drop that lands in her mouth, Tauriel curses in an explosion of bright Elvish that leaves Fíli feeling breathless, laughter bubbling up inside him. He cannot see her in the dark, but yet it seems to lessen, not seeming so constant.

+

The orcs open the door, their chatter echoing in the high wind.

Tauriel grabs his elbow, hisses, ' _Fíli_. We need to try—'

He raises his head slowly, squints in her direction. 'Don't you think I've tried before?' His voice is barbed, thinking she believes he's just _sat_ here, waiting, not trying to make any attempt to escape.

There's a pause, as Tauriel considers, 'But there's two of us now – it doubles our chances.' She shifts as if to stand, and then the orcs flash a light down at them, burning bright. Fíli closes his eyes, jerks his head down low but not before he sees the walls of the cell rising up from the black ground, like the teeth of some monstrous beast.

The orcs throw the bag of food down and then the light vanishes, the door shuts. Tauriel sighs heavily, darting forward, moving amongst the jagged rocks and plucks up the bag of food.

'Next time,' she says, 'We will be ready for them.'

+

Next time – and three times after that – they try to be ready for them. But it is to no avail. The orcs push them back, knock them down and slam the door in their faces, the glimpse of light disappearing more swiftly than it had came.

+

She runs out of stories sooner rather than later, her voice giving out when she tries to tell him of Aegnor and Andreth again. She turns to him, prompts him for stories – of his family, of the dwarves, of anything she can think of. There is little he can share with her of the dwarven histories that she does not already have some inkling of, bound by the secrecy of his race, but she is fascinated by his stories of his childhood and the years before their paths crossed.

Eventually his stories end, as all stories do, and his voice gives out in the darkness.

They sit still, huddled together, and wait for something to happen. Something to change. It is cold and dark and they do not know what the future brings, but they are not alone.


End file.
